General Education & MUS Transferable Core

 

Students attending Montana University System campuses have three options for transferring general education core requirements completed at one MUS campus as a block that satisfies the general education block of courses at another campus.

OPTION 1: Students complete all lower division coursework (100- or 200-level courses) in a campus-specific general education program; when transferring, this block substitutes for comparable general education program requirements at any other MUS campus. The student may still be required to take additional general education coursework at the upper division level at the new campus, but not at the lower division level. Each MUS campus has designated specific requirements for its general education program.

OPTION 2: Students can complete a set of courses known as the MUS Transferable Core Curriculum, consisting of 30 credits distributed across six categories. Each campus in the MUS has identified a set of classes that will satisfy the Transferable Core requirements. As with Option 1, students may still be required to take additional general education coursework at the upper division level.

This option comes with an important bonus. Students who have not completed the Transferable Core may still use it to transfer if they have completed at least 20 credits of their general education requirements; they would then complete the remaining requirements at the new campus. Alternatively, they may choose to fulfill the general education requirements specific to the new campus, and they MUST do so if they have completed fewer than 20 credits of the MUS Transferable Core.

OPTION 3: An Associate of Arts (A.A.) or an Associate of Science (A.S.) degree indicates that students have completed the general education program of their specific two-year campus—thus satisfying Option 1. These credentials are often referred to as “transfer degrees” for this reason. Some specialized associate’s degrees, such as the Associate of Science in Nursing, may not include the necessary number of general education credits to meet the expectations stated in Option 3.

Special Note: Although Associate of Applied Science (A.A.S.) degrees require "related instruction" courses, these courses often do not satisfy general education requirements. These workforce-preparation credentials are not designed to qualify students to transfer into bachelor's degree programs, and a coherent program of general education is not typically part of their program of study.